


(This Girl Is) Dangerous

by misura



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27330022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "It didn't hurt," Arya said. "They're just some cuts and bruises."Jaqen pointed. "That is not a bruise."
Relationships: Jaqen H'ghar/Arya Stark
Comments: 2
Kudos: 100





	(This Girl Is) Dangerous

Jaqen gave her something to drink, and Arya felt the warmth of it spread through her body, leaving her feeling warm and comfortable and _safe_ (which was annoying: she didn't need some stupid drink to feel safe, and not Jaqen either, or anyone else) and so when he held up something that looked like a maester's bag next, she just sighed.

"A girl should not put herself in dangerous situations if she does not wish to get injured," Jaqen said.

"Yes, yes, fine." Arya sat down, gesturing for him to get on with it. "Look, I can take care of myself, all right?"

"A man does not doubt this." Jaqen started pulling things out of the bag.

"I meant - " Arya started, then frowned. "Did you drug me?"

"A girl is suspicious. A man is hurt," Jaqen said. As far as Arya could tell, when it was just the two of them, Jaqen didn't really bother with expressions, but he might look like she'd genuinely hurt his feelings - in which case, tough.

"A man is an assassin," Arya said. "Kind of felt like a fair question. And you haven't actually answered it yet."

Jaqen's lips twisted in a smile. "Perhaps a girl should not drink something when she does not know what it is."

"So you did drug me," Arya said. She told herself not to feel hurt: Jaqen was right, after all. She should have asked. She shouldn't have trusted him simply because he was a friend - or someone who might, perhaps, be something more, or at least other than a friend.

"No," Jaqen said. "And yes. It helps against the pain. Nothing more," he added, before Arya could ask.

"It didn't hurt," Arya said. "They're just some cuts and bruises."

Jaqen pointed. "That is not a bruise."

"It didn't hurt. Doesn't hurt now, either," Arya said.

Jaqen sighed. "A girl insists on missing the point."

"It's not missing the point when there isn't one," Arya said. "So I got injured, so what? The guy who did this to me - he's dead. His friends who tried to help him are dead. I'm not. I killed them."

"A man is pleased," Jaqen said, his tone dry.

"A girl is pleased a man is pleased," Arya replied, almost managing not to roll her eyes.

Jaqen definitely smiled this time. Arya assured herself that any warmth she felt came from whatever he'd given her to drink. "A man might be even more pleased if a girl were to keep herself from getting hurt."

"How? By staying somewhere safe and letting other people do all the fighting?" Arya shook her head.

"Dead men usually pose little threat," Jaqen said.

_Guess you've never heard of the White Walkers, then,_ Arya thought.

Jaqen grimaced as if he'd read her mind. "Certain exceptions notwithstanding."

"Kill them before they can hurt you," Arya said. Five of them, and one of her: she'd known right away that she couldn't take any chances. (She'd toyed, briefly, with the idea of turning back, vanishing before they'd seen her and finding Jaqen to even the odds, but then she'd told herself no, she was good enough to do this by herself, she didn't need Jaqen - and she'd been right, hadn't she?)

"Yes," Jaqen said. There was something cold in his eyes, and Arya suddenly pictured him as he'd have arrived in the middle of the fight: quietly and silently, but none the less deadly.

She'd have told him how much she hadn't needed him after, of course. She wouldn't have said 'thank you', let alone 'I was happy to see you'.

Arya sighed. "Fine. I'll try to do better next time. All right?"

Jaqen inclined his head. "A man would not ask for anything more."

"And you can help me take care of my injuries," Arya added, feeling generous. "You're right. I could use a hand with these, and I do trust you. You know that, don't you?"

"A man would not dare presume such a thing," Jaqen said.

Arya grinned. "What, you're not going to lecture me on how I shouldn't trust anyone, least of all you?"

"A man is trustworthy," Jaqen said. "A man keeps his word. But when a girl is always suspicious, well, that is not something within a man's powers to change."

"Suspicious is good, though. Being suspicious keeps people alive," Arya said, watching as Jaqen cleaned her wounds. Only one of them looked like it ought to hurt.

"Being good at killing keeps people alive," Jaqen said. "In a place like this, at least."

_My father was very good at killing. Didn't keep_ him _alive,_ Arya thought, even if it felt strange, to think like that. It still hurt. _Cersei. Ser Ilyn Payne. Joffrey._ Two down, one to go: not so bad.

"Perhaps a girl might do better to let go of the past, if she would make a future for herself," Jaqen said.

_But winter is coming._ Arya tried to picture Jaqen fighting the White Walkers, the armies of the dead. Instead, she pictured him at Winterfell as it had been, as she remembered it: strong and snowy and proud and full of familiar faces.

He wouldn't have fit in at all, at least not any better than she would have, as she was now.

She knew that they would have been welcome, even so.

"The past made me," Arya said. "The past is how I met you."

"A girl has no regrets?" Jaqen asked.

"I wish I were better," Arya said. "I wish - I didn't do it on purpose, you know. Getting hurt. It's just that there were five of them, and I'm not as good as you are. Yet."

"A man is flattered," Jaqen said. He didn't add that a man also knew very well that she wasn't answering the actual question, which was probably part of why Arya ... felt the way she felt about him.

"Still, it all turned out all right." The warmth was still there. Jaqen's hands were on her skin, his touch firm, impersonal. One expert killer tending another one.

If nothing else, they made a pretty good team.

Jaqen sighed. "A girl speaks of danger so easily."

"There wasn't any danger." Arya scoffed. "They were just common soldiers. Aren't you done yet?"

"There is always danger," Jaqen said. Their faces were very close together. Arya imagined leaning forward just a little. A kiss, that was all. Hardly anything.

Arya swallowed.

"See? A girl understands now," Jaqen said. 

He moved away, lesson taught, and Arya said, "Coward," before she could really think about it, because it wasn't fair for him to -

"A man respects danger. That does not make him a coward." Jaqen looked at her, waiting.

For an apology, possibly, though Arya had no intention of making one. Not right now, anyway. "Are you saying _I'm_ dangerous?" She half-liked the idea and half ... not so much.

"A girl has by her own admission killed five men," Jaqen said. "Many people would consider that - "

"You're not most people," Arya interrupted. "You're Jaqen H'ghar. One of the Faceless Men."

"And you are Arya, of House Stark," Jaqen said.

_And I'm also the person who might kiss you just to know what it feels like,_ Arya thought, and then she did, because Jaqen didn't move away this time; he stayed right where he was, letting her press their bodies closer together until she realized that what she'd felt before hadn't been warmth at all: _this_ was what warmth felt like, with Jaqen's arms around her and his body against hers and his mouth on hers, as if neither of them needed to breathe ever again.

(They did, of course, and Jaqen looked at her and murmured, "Very, very dangerous," and Arya laughed and kissed him again, to prove him right.)


End file.
